Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
by pingipenguin
Summary: Merlin becomes a regular at The Rising Star tavern, but not for the reasons one might expect. Set post S5, with spoilers for the finale.


_**Standard Disclaimer:**__ 'Merlin' belongs to the BBC and Shine. The lyrics featured in this fic are from the musical 'Les Misérables'. I don't own them, or the rights to the play._

**o~O~o**

There's a grief that can't be spoken.

There's a pain goes on and on.

Empty chairs at empty tables

Now my friends are dead and gone.

o-o

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me

That I live and you are gone.

There's a grief that can't be spoken.

There's a pain goes on and on.

o-o

Phantom faces at the window.

Phantom shadows on the floor.

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more.

o-o

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me

What your sacrifice was for

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more

**o~O~o**

Elaine the barmaid knew that Sir Gwaine was dead the moment Camelot's army reached the citadel and trooped wearily into its stony, restricted depths. She paused in wiping down the counter to reflect briefly on her favourite customer; the knight, though his time in The Rising Sun was restricted by his duties, had never failed to bring a smile to her face when he inevitably wound up on the doorstep long before the other drunkards – dedicated souls, mind – saw fit to make the rounds. Sometimes, duty permitting, he brought his companions with him; Sirs Lancelot and Elyan had always been welcome there before their untimely deaths, and to their memory Elaine knew she owed the chivalrous Leon and soft-at-heart Percival a place at the bar and the occasional free tankard of her best mead. They would need a place to remember by forgetting all the more now, she wagered, for she knew that, had Sir Gwaine survived the fight, he would have already been seated at one of the tables with a tankard nursed tenderly between his hands. That he wasn't spoke true enough of his gruesome fate.

She stopped for a moment to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye, then moved to fetch her broom from behind the counter. Life would solider on, with or without Gwaine's dedicated patronage, and she still had work to do.

Time passed, and though Camelot wept bitterly for its lost monarch life kept them moving briskly forwards. New knights replaced those lost at Camlann in due course, and soon the bar was heaving with them again; in the sea of new names and new faces Elaine quite forgot the old regulars who would grace her tavern no more. In fact, it wasn't until about a year after Camlann that she started at seeing Merlin resting his forearms on the bar, his once-bright eyes now melancholy as he watched the antics of the new knights to whom he could not owe the same bond of loyalty. Elaine hurried over to him and grasped his hand, trying to convey her sympathy. Judging by his wan smile, it was sorely needed.

"Just a tankard of ale," he told her quietly, slipping her coins that she promptly refused.

"On the house. Go enjoy yourself." She watched as, drink in hand, Merlin pottered over to a corner that his friends had once occupied and sat down heavily at the table – unique in that it was the only round one in the room - resting his chin on the palm of one hand and allowing his cerulean eyes to roam the crowded room as they saw fit. He nursed his sole drink long into the night, until the bar was near empty – well, near empty if you didn't count the drunks who had passed out on the floor and had been abandoned by their comrades – and as Elaine bustled over to him he smiled at her and rose.

"I should get going. Gaius will be worried about me."

"Alright. Take care of yourself Merlin."

"Until tomorrow night, Elaine."

His last statement surprised her, but he was gone before she could question it. Though he'd accompanied Gwaine and the other knights in here plenty of times Merlin had never entered of his own accord before, much less pledged himself to become a regular. She wondered if he'd hold fast to his promise all throughout the following day and wasn't disappointed; come evening he was there again, and this time Elaine was able to snag a few words of conversation with him.

"How've you been?"

He gave a sad smile that didn't quite reach his eyes and lifted one of his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. "Oh, alright. Gaius has been keeping me busy."

"How long have you been back in Camelot? Honest to God, I thought you perished out on Camlann with the king."

She regretted her words the moment she spoke them, for Merlin winced powerfully and nudged full glass with his elbow so it overflowed. Elaine moved to repair the damage, and was so absorbed in her task she almost didn't hear Merlin say, "A few days. I've been … travelling."

"Oh, really? Where to?"

"Here and there. Spent some time with my mother in Ealdor."

Elaine eyed him sympathetically. "Too many memories here?"

He grimaced. "Something like that." Then, lifting his tankard, he nodded to her and retreated to the corner he'd claimed the previous night. His evening played out much the same as it had before, and while Elaine busied herself with the drunkards – a few of which had decided it would be _fun_ to draw rude shapes in her tables with the points of their swords – he barely moved a muscle, his eyes roving the room as he supped his frothy beer. He left without a word before closing time, and Elaine found the next morning a few coins scattered on the table at which he'd been sat. It was the only time she took payment from him for the beer – she couldn't bring herself to repeal his honesty, so instead she put the coins towards those living in the streets outside, though their numbers had significantly decreased since Arthur became king.

On the third night Merlin came into the tavern but was almost immediately hailed by Percival and Leon; he had little enough time to purchase his drink before being swept off to 'socialise' with them. On the fourth night he came alone, and on the fifth, and on the sixth – when Leon and Percival were there – he deliberately avoided them, taking up a new spot near the door where he knew they couldn't see him. Over the many long nights he was to spend in The Rising Sun he never abandoned his new spot, though his gaze often rested sadly on the seat he had been forced to vacate by his jubilant friends. Despite knowing that the knights' intentions had been good Elaine recognised the signs of someone needing to mourn, and helped Merlin by shepherding Percival and Leon away from his hidey-hole whenever they stepped across the tavern threshold. Merlin never saw her doing so, as he often arrived long after the duo, but Elaine fancied a few more coins worked their way into what she was giving straight to the poor. She was desperately glad to help him.

The years waxed and waned, and though Arthur's reign was never forgotten Camelot grew strong through its beloved queen, Guinevere. Merlin helped her a lot, Elaine knew, and she had a sneaking suspicion he had something to do with the ban on magic being repealed. She'd known about the man's 'gifts' for some time, ever since she'd spied him entertaining a few doe-eyed drunkards with a dragon he'd conjured from the flames in the fireplace, and was glad he didn't have to hide who he truly was anymore. She served him dutifully, every night, for about ten years until news came that the Court Physician had passed away quietly in his sleep. That morning was the only time she saw Merlin in her pub in broad daylight.

His face was pale but not tear-streaked as he approached her, and he grasped at her proffered hand as a drowning man would a lifeline. "I have to leave," he said abruptly, his face contorting with masked emotions. She drew him into a hug.

"I understand." Releasing him, she added, "I'm glad I got to know you a little better, Merlin. You're a good man."

He smiled sadly, his gaze flicking to the side, towards the table he had once sat at with his friends – Sirs Lancelot, Gwaine, Elyan, Leon, Percival and, on occasion, the great Arthur himself. Alone against the fireplace now, silhouetted by the wan winter sunlight streaming in through the grubby tavern windows, it looked terribly forlorn. Merlin blinked and scrubbed a hand over his eyes.

"Promise me you'll watch over Leon and Percival," he requested of her, his eyes desperate. "I don't intend on coming back."

"Of course."

"And … one more thing." He took a deep, steadying breath and allowed once more his gaze to drift to the lost little table, surrounded by seven empty chairs. "Don't forget them, alright? Keep them in your heart as surely as you would me. Spread the tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table so that it may live long in the minds of men. I …" Here his voice broke, and he ducked his head. "I don't want everything we fought for to be in vain."

Elaine reached out and squeezed his hand. "I promise, Merlin. I won't forget."

He nodded once, a sharp birdlike jab of his head, and drew her into a hug. Then, with a last tired smile, he strode from the tavern and vanished into the crisp morning … never to be seen again.

Elaine kept the story alive as she had promised, speaking freely of Arthur's great deeds to her patrons who, in turn, spoke of it with their families and the merchants in the lower town who wandered in from lands afar. She told her children, who told their friends, who told their children in years to come, and though Camelot fell with Guinevere the story didn't; Elaine lived just long enough to be aware that it had spread far and wide, the fine details hazy but the big picture impossible to miss. On the night of her death, as she sat hunched in a rocking chair before a dwindling fire, abandoned by her grown brood, she thought she saw a wizened figure steal over the threshold and hold her hand as she slipped away, his final words the final balm she had of the living world.

"Thank you, Elaine. Thank you."

**o~O~o**

_**A/N:**_

_Whhyyyyy can I not stop writing depressing post-S5 fics? Whhyyyyy? _

_This was born of the song lyrics mentioned above, as I saw Les Misérables on the day it came out and thought the Knights' story was similar in many regards to those who died at the barricades during the French Revolution … 'twas a heroic stand but ultimately one that was in vain. Aaaaaand this may or may not be somewhat of a tribute to Gwaine. Merlin's neckerchief aside, it was another unnecessary canon death that made me want to punch a hole in the wall._

_Hope you liked Elaine __ Feedback would be greatly appreciated. _

_And I'm thinking should add another category to the list - 'nostalgia'. Because I had real difficulty coming up with a genre for this, believe me.  
_


End file.
